Rex Libris :)

Ahhh I love being a librarian...if only it could be this cool. :)

My review of Rex Libris (Graphic Novel)

I have a Goodreads site and I wrote this when I was still the librarian of Rockwell Charter High School.  I bought the book because I knew it would appeal to the boys at the school and really wanted to encourage them to come to the library.  It worked!  Not to mention that one of my TA's told all the other TA's that it was required reading and convinced all of the kids that wanted to be TA's in the future that they had to read it too.  It flew off the shelves.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.  I only wish I could buy a copy of the library bound edition for my personal library.

As a librarian I endorse this book wholeheartedly, it is intelligent, funny, interesting and oh-how-i-wish-i-could-get -overdue-books-back-like-Rex-fantastic. Rex and his band of librarians protect the world from evil and will do anything to retrieve an overdue book and fine. What a great story! This hardcover version covers Comics 1-5 and the rest of the remaining 7 comics are included in the book Sea of Monsters if you want to see if Rex ever gets the Principia Mathematic from the now destroyed Vaglox. There are lots of add-ons in the book like messages from Barry Horst the "publisher" of the comic, he "pops" into the story-line occassionally, extra Rex comics from various artists, and an ad for toy librarians. I want those, especially the one of Hypatia "Kicking Evil Ass"!! This comic is so intelligently written I have to wonder if James Turner is a fan of Jasper Fforde. Of course I couldn't resist James Turner's description of librarians for his small expose at the back of the book on the Ordo Biblitheca. That is me to a T. (I wish) Rex, Simon-the-megalomaniac-cursed-to-be-a-sparrow-for-4,000-years (telekinetic semi-sidekick), Hypatia (fellow femme fatale librarian agent and possible love interest for Rex) and Circe (former evil goddess turned cookie baking librarian...she also cursed simon and sometimes turns irritating patrons into pigs, but she's mended her evil ways....hmmm we'll see about that) are all terrific characters. Not to mention the bad guys with overdue books and fines that must be tracked down. I cannot say enough how intelligently this comic is written, you might need to arm yourself with a dictionary to figure out what Rex and his fellow librarians or ever Barry are saying, but isn't that what we should have with us when we read all good literature. Enjoy! 

I bought this book not knowing anything about it, solely for the fact it was about a librarian "superhero" and for the fantastic cover art, for the High School at which I am the librarian. It is a terrific find. My 2 sons ages 12 and 14 LOVED it and are anxious for me to get the rest of the comics so that they can see what happens. My 12 year old's favorite part is the fact that Rex constantly has a book with him and uses the knowledge he gets from within his books to defeat the bad guys.


Cool things to see :)


http://www.jtillustration.com/rex/dewey_secrets.html

Kindle Nation

I have noticed that a lot of people on the Subways have Kindles or Nooks.  I have caught myself looking at them and thinking wow I wonder what intelligent book they are reading...Proust...Poe...Collins?  And then I have to laugh...who knows what they are reading, a steamy romance novel perhaps.  We'd never know!  When you used to have to tear off the covers of your pulp fiction and trashy novels while riding public transportation...those are days gone by.  Now we can all get Kindles and look like the intelligent readers we want to be.  Read on!!

Off the beaten path (review of Her Fearful Symmetry)

I was afraid to read this book, I didn't know if she would be able to duplicate for me what she did in Time Travelers Wife, so it took me a while to get to reading this. I really liked this book I know I only gave it three stars but it isn't because of her writing (which is excellent) I just felt really sad at the end of the book. I felt the same way at the end of TTW too, but here I just felt so much remorse for Robert's story and how that ended for him. Trapped in a situation he had no idea how to deal with or handle emotionally all because of the choices of others. 

The story was beautifully written and woven together. The characters were different, likable and sometimes not likable, the situations interesting and difficult to determine the correct course of action, it was in all a fantastic book. I loved Martin's story I'm so happy he got out of the house. I felt Valentina's pain at never having her own identity but wished she had taken another course. But we all make decisions in life that lead us on paths we wished we had never been on in the first place. I wanted so much for Julia to stop being selfish and realize that she needed to be her own person and that she needed to let Valentina go. The fact that she was able to finally do that at the end proves that Valentina did not need to go to such lengths to escape what she felt was a life that was holding her back and trapping her. 

Now I loved Robert, I think I would have had a crush on him too. I wanted so much for his story to go well. I wanted him to remember Elsbeth and go on with Valentina. He just seemed so broken by the end and having him just disappear off into nowhere just seemed so incredibly sad. He was probably the one character I really wished happiness for and he doesn't seem to get it. Again this is the fate we all dread and hope we never have to deal with. Not everyone gets what they wish for and sometimes our lives take on such different tacts than we thought they were going to that it's difficult to deal with, especially if those changes in direction are caused by someone else, especially someone that we love. Sometimes we are never able to get back to where we wanted to go in the first place because of it. 

The one thing I didn't like was the switching that Elsbeth and Edie did, I found it slightly confusing and really didn't think it added anything to the story except as another example of how we can hurt those around us when we are young and unthinking, of how we can get ourselves into situations that we don't know how to get out of. But I do think the story would have been just as strong without it.